Mara Hoffman Continues to Champion Diversity in Her Africa-Inspired Fall 2014 Show

One of the hotly-discussed topics in the world of fashion right now is the lack of model diversity on designer runways. Critics all agree that the industry should be promoting more diversity in fashion shows, and a report just released last week suggests that over time, designers have started to cast more models of color in their shows, so perhaps change is finally at hand.

One New York Fashion Week designer has faced the issue head on: Hippie-chic designer Mara Hoffman. The New York-based designer has long been known to cast black and other non-white models in her shows, lookbooks, and online editorials; she stayed true to that vision for her latest runway show, which featured a notably high percentage of models of non-white descent.

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The show took its cues from the “art, landscapes, textiles, and jewelry of Northern Africa,” and Hoffman chose to cast primarily models of color. Certainly, the move seems fitting for a collection packed with sequin-embroidered chiffon gowns and camel-print intarsia sweaters that looks straight out of Morocco and Egypt, but the move seemed to reverberate beyond the confines of one collection. The designer herself seemed to suggest as much, using the song “Colours” by Graffiti6.

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Click through the gallery above to see the incredible diversity Hoffman cast in her latest show. We can only hope to see more of this kind of diversity on designer runways to come.